France
France, officially the French Republic ( , ), is a sovereign state whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is bordered by Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany to the northeast, Switzerland and Italy to the east, and Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The country's 18 integral regions (five of which are situated overseas) span a combined area of and a total population of 67.02 million ( ). France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into East Francia, Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia, which became the Kingdom of France in 987, emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, following its victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453). During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world. The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). France became Europe's dominant cultural, political, and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, establishing one of modern history's earliest republics and drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire. His subsequent Napoleonic Wars (1803–15) shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, and was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s, with most retaining close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art, science, and philosophy. It hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, and tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, and human development. France is considered a great power in global affairs,Jack S. Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495–1975, (2014) p. 29 being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, and a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and La Francophonie. Railway stations in Paris The standard gauge network is geared towards Paris. This was decided by the law of June 11, 1842, which is also known as "étoile de Legrand" ("Star of Legrand"). The law stipulated that, in addition to many routes from Paris, there should be only two transversal routes, one from the Rhine to the Mediterranean, the other from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean. This is still the case today, which is why Paris's six main train stations are the busiest stations in France. These are: *Gare du Nord from there trains to Arras, Lille, Boulogne-sur-Mer, London and Brussels; *Gare de l'Est from there trains to Reims, Nancy, Metz, Strasbourg, Saarbrücken, Mannheim, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich and Luxembourg; *Gare de Lyon from there trains to Dijon, Lyon, Marseille, Geneva, Zurich and Turin; *Gare d'Austerlitz from there trains to Orléans, Limoges, Clermont-Ferrand and Toulouse; *Gare Montparnasse from there trains to Nantes, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Rennes (Brittany) and Quimper; *Gare Saint-Lazare from there trains to Caen and Rouen (Normandy); Railway network The French railway network, as administered by SNCF Réseau, as of June 2007, is a network of commercially usable lines of , of which is electrified. of those are high speed lines (LGV), dispose of two or more tracks. are supplied with 1,500 V DC, with 25 kV AC at 50 Hz. are electrified by third rail or other means.RFF Website "Network inventory" 1,500 V is used on the south, and HSR lines and the northern part of the country use 25 kV electrification. Trains drive on the left, except in Alsace and Moselle where tracks were first constructed while those regions were part of Germany. Rail links to adjacent countries * Same gauge ** Belgium — voltage change 25 kV AC/3 kV DC (except high-speed line to Brussels, same voltage) ** Germany — voltage change 25 kV AC/15 kV AC ** Great Britain via the Channel Tunnel — voltage change 25 kV AC/750 V DC third rail (except high-speed line to London, same voltage) ** Italy — voltage change 25 kV AC or 1.5 kV DC/3 kV DC ** Luxembourg — same voltage ** Monaco — same voltage ** Spain via the LGV Perpignan-Figueres — same voltage ** Switzerland — voltage change 25 kV AC or 1.5 kV DC/15 kV AC * Break-of-gauge, / ** Spain (on conventional tracks) — voltage change 1.5 kV DC/3 kV DC * No rail link to Andorra Current status The French non-TGV intercity service (TET) is in decline, with old infrastructure and trains. It is likely to be hit further as the French government is planning to remove the monopoly that rail currently has on long-distance journeys by letting coach operators compete. Travel to the UK through the Channel Tunnel has grown in recent years, and from May 2015 passengers have been able to travel direct to Marseille, Avignon and Lyon. Eurostar is also introducing new Class 374 trains and refurbishing the current Class 373s. The International Transport Forum described the current status of the French railways in their paper "Efficiency indicators of Railways in France": * The success of the TGV is undeniable (Crozet 2013). Work started in September 1975 on the first high-speed rail (HSR) line, between Paris and Lyon, and it was inaugurated in September 1981. New high-speed lines were opened in 1989 (towards the south-west), in 1993 (towards the north), etc. The high-speed network now covers 2,000 km, and will reach over 2,600 km in 2017 with the opening of the four lines currently being built. * The regionalisation of intercity and local services was tested in 1997 and fully deployed in the early 2000s. Since then, TERs (regional express trains) have seen traffic rise steeply (50% between 2000 and 2013) as, to a lesser extent, have services in the Ile de France region (25%). * Rail freight has been far less successful. The French network carried 55 billion tonne-km in 2001, but this figure scarcely reached 32 billion tonne-km in 2013. This weak performance contrasts sharply with the ambitious public policy of the last fifteen years. The Grenelle Environment Forum (2007–2010) oversaw the deployment of a costly freight plan that was no more effective than its predecessors.